slosh down the pepper!

On the trail of the Saigon Travellers 1 Jan 09: Chapter 2

It has become a must to do breakfast when we visit Vietnam. Most hotels offer free buffet breakfast and they charge it to the total cost of the accommodation. So, why not?

For unlimited servings at USD 2.50 per pax, it seemed like a bargain when you compared it to a baguette with ham which cost 10,000 dong.

The below is about 80 - 90% of what I can remember:

Coffee
Tea
Diluted orange juice
Fresh milk at room temperature
Diluted apple juice
Cereal
Muffins
A tray of sliced baguette
A tray of Sunny side-ups
Sliced watermelon
Sliced pear
Bananas
Some kind of pie made with eggs, bacon and cheese (like a very eggy version of quiche)
Some kind of pie with a hard crusted base topped with bacon and cheese
Sliced ham
Pan-fried fish
Some vegetables
Some kind of clear soup
Some noodle soup with pig's blood and beef-like cubes
Fried rice

We took a lot of baguette and eggs. The sliced baguette is crusty on the outside and fluffy inside, making it easy to eat without the crust biting into the gums, unlike those we find in Singapore. The only pity was the lack of a toaster oven; it could have tasted even better if it is warm.

Breakfast is served from 6.30am to about 9.30am. We quickly took ours by 8.15am and took a short 2-minute walk to MTV Travel.

There was only one westerner, and one other couple waiting. We were told that our bus would arrive soon, and the staff, warmly invited us to take a seat inside their shop. There were several tour buses parked across the street and the angmohs who were waiting with us were directed to one of those aircon buses. "They are going for the half-day tour to Cuchi Tunnels..", the staff explained.

We stood around for nearly half an hour, but there was no indication for us to follow anyone to a bus. One of the staff had earlier confirmed with us that we were not the couple they were supposed to pick up from some hotel. This was followed by a couple of phone calls, and constant flipping of their customer schedule log. Tsk tsk, the first signs of bad planning.

Luckily, we didn't wait in vain. Tempest even thought that we might have to postpone our tour if our bus forgot about us. The staff seemed to have noticed our anxiety and kept telling us that there wasn't any problem; the bus was late due to traffic jam. Then, a dark, scrawny looking middle-aged man walked into the office and we were told to follow him. This frail looking hunchback took us across a few streets to where the bus was parked. I was a little surprised that he could walk so fast and so effortlessly!

The bus we were seated in looks average. There were probably about 30 of us in the tour group, with 70% of them Caucasians and the rest Asians. 5 minutes into the journey, the guide started introducing himself as 'Minh' and gave an overview of the day's program. His english was understandable, though I can't make out 10 - 20% of what he was saying. Maybe it was just me. Tempest managed to figure out from his speech that he used to work for the American air force as a translator during the war.
Temple of Cao Dai

It took 3 hours just to reach Cao Dai Temple. The first half an hour was bearable and I took pleasure in seeing the street life. But the slightly bumpy ride had a cradle-like effect, rocking me to sleep.

Like all tours, we had a stopover at some arts and crafts workshop supposedly set up for the handicapped to make a living for themselves by selling crafts work to tourists. Each piece is set at an exorbitant price, like USD 2 for a small key chain that can be found in any market.


After the half an hour tour, we carried on with the un-interesting bus ride. The mass starts at 12pm everyday and last for about 45 minutes. 15 minutes to 12, the bus driver was honking away in this last stretch of the journey. The guide also tried to do a hurried introduction of Caodaism. Alas, we were still late and missed the part where the procession enters the Temple. It was about 12.15pm when we arrived.

Visitors are required to take off the shoes before entering the temple. There were quite a number of followers, mostly females dressed in their religious white robes, directing visitors. The temple structure is organized into two levels. The first level is where the mass takes place. The second level holds the band and singers. We were directed to walk up the steep steps to the corridors on the second level to view the mass.

This is the band that supplies the live chanting and music. They are located on the second level. Only 6 girls singing and their voices are able to be heard throughout the temple!

The rest of the followers sitting in the first level seemed to keep silent and have their hands cupped in a particular manner (right over left, with right thumb tucked into the pocket of the left fist). Those people wearing the colorful robes are the seniors, given the rank of Monks and Nuns. The men are seated on the right and the women on the left. Most of them look either old or middle-aged. Very few are in their twenties.

"God is symbolized by the Divine Eye, specifically the left eye because Yang is the left side and God is the master of Yang." - Wikipedia

We ceremoniously took pictures of the building, the procession and the compound. It was a very short tour that lasted barely an hour. The highlight of the tour was only the mass and procession. We already missed the strolling in of the followers, so I insisted on watching them strolled out when Tempest was eager to move on and look at other parts of the compound.

Kinda reminds me of those Ali-Baba palaces.

The guide rushed all of us up onto the tour bus shortly after the procession was over. He wanted to move on to lunch and the rest of the tour. We were brought to a home-run restaurant (similar to those found in Malaysia where tour groups enjoyed a 10-course seafood lunch) selling a variety of local food. I am not sure if it was the price or the food itself, but many of the angmohs went for the cheapest omelette fried rice (30,000 or 35,000 dong) of which they liberally sprinkled in lots of light soya sauce. Me and Tempest each went for the pan-fried sotong and beef with rice respectively (50,000 dong).

Cuchi Tunnels

It was another 1.5 hour of bus ride to the Cuchi Tunnels. We watched a video about the Vietnam war and were rushed on to the famous site for tourists to take pictures.

Demo by the guide at Cuchi Tunnels. Standing behind is our tour guide, Minh. This was an unaltered tunnel and can lead one to the other entrance 100m away.

Well, nobody tried since it was too small for most of us to go through. We were given about 15 minutes to go midway through the hole and take pictures. Tempest was pretty keen to do it but the guide was already rushing us off to the next site. Miss.

Minh also brought us to view many man-made booby traps by the guerillas. Most of them involved spikes like the below:

Meant to immobilize paratroopers, who upon landing, falls right through the slab of 'ground' and steps into the spikes.

There was a lot of 'sightseeing' - booby traps, wax figurines depicting the guerrillas' lifestyle, tanks etc, so much that one angmoh lady was wondering if Minh were ever going to allow us to go through the much talked-about underground tunnels.

Before we went down, Minh emphasized that nobody should stop midway in the tunnels as it was hot and stuffy. So we should go through it as fast as we can. Heh, it was a very short route, only about 100 to at most 200m. But tiring no doubt! Imagine walking half-bended all the time. It was much worse for the westerners and those who are above 1.6m. It was a pretty rushed tour, I felt for most of us couldn't go through the tunnels more than once.

Finally, there was the shooting stuffs that interested again some angmohs. There were different types of guns, most of which I can't remember their names. The shooting is charged by the bullet and there is a minimum number of bullets to be bought, so it can add up to quite a huge cost if you were planning to play with one of those machine guns. At that cost, my interest was killed. Furthermore, there was no target; it was plain shooting into the air. Tempest already had his shot at some of those guns during NS, so we sat around drinking red bull and admiring scorpions in bottles.

Overall, it was still an interesting albeit short excursion (2 -3 hours). The tunnels and booby traps made up for the long bus ride. I am not sure if it would be more fruitful visiting the Cuchi Tunnels on our own. Though they have their own internal guides (dressed in green communist uniforms), they seemed not to speak English. Minh explained snippets of the Vietnam war, the structure of the tunnels and even demonstrated how some of the booby traps work. I doubt we would get to see that if we were walking on our own.

However I am not so sure about Temple of Cao Dai. Indeed, it was a nice structure, but nothing spectacular, and certainly not worth the long bus journey. If given a choice again, I would have just opted for the half day tour to Cuchi Tunnels.

Dong Khoi

This is the Orchard Road of Ho Chi Minh City. Hotels, restaurants and shopping centres lined both sides of the street. We only chanced upon one cinema which I would have gone in to catch 'Twilight' or something if it didn't resemble the Yangtze Theatre in Chinatown. I supposed the locals prefer watching satellite TV than to spend money in theatres.

We walked up and down the street, following the addresses of recommended eateris in Lonely Planet. Oh my! 80% of those given in the book have closed down! In the end, we settled for a not-so-expensive Monacco Pizza at some quieter corner off the main streets of Dong Khoi. It's only our second day and we were already feeling a little low on cash!

Crazy Traffic! Those motorbikes stopped in the middle of the road to take pictures of the Christmas trees!

Bac Dang

Tempest was in the mood for ice cream again and in we went to Bac Dang, a local brand frequented by locals.

Some strange tasting water served to us. Tempest's guess was sandal wood, while I thought it was jasmine. Then he said it might be some soluble disinfectant. It didn't taste that bad till he mentioned that. Yuck!

Literally servied in a fresh coconut, the icecream came with tropical fruits such as strawberry, dragonfruit, watermelon etc.

We ate up everything, including the coconut flesh! Many of the locals who ordered this same coconut icecream appeared to leave the coconut untouched. What a waste, we both thought, for the flesh was silky and subtly sweet. Haha.

posted by slingwoof @ 1/13/2009 01:12:00 PM 0 comments

On the trail of the Saigon Travellers 31 Dec 08: Chapter 1

We are off to Vietnam again! This time, to Ho Chi Minh City, with a side trip to Dalat.

Armed with a three-quarter filled 40 liter backpack each, we arrived at 6.30am at the Budget Terminal (thanks to Tempest's Dad who gave us a ride), just one hour before the flight via Tiger Airways. There was only a few restaurants, and no fast food. We settled for average noodle fare, compulsory nonetheless, for food aboard the plane is often served at exorbitant prices.

Check in via the automated system was no hassle, and we were off flying soon after! It was a pretty short flight, about 2 hours, thankfully.

Arrival

Tan Son Nhat airport seems to have progressed significantly since our last transit 2 years ago, when we were off to Hanoi. Now they used flat screen monitors; but the immigration officers still appeared slightly unfriendly. It was a smooth 'check-out'. Our first instinct was to visit the foreign exchange counter. There were a few adjacent to each other, and only one of them showed a more favorable rate of 17,300 (the others had 17,200+). Tempest noticed that the lady at the next bank peeped at the digital board of the counter which had a long queue and subsequently adjusted her rate to 17,330. Heh, of course we defected. I made a mistake of only exchanging USD 100 to dong. It appears that things are cheaper if you pay in dong. Locals generally apply 17,000 or even 16,000 exchange rate if you choose to pay in USD.

The coldness of the indoors was soon overcome by the hot and aggressive atmosphere of the outdoors. Taxi touts lined the entrance, constantly waving at tourists and shouting "Taxi?". Many of the touts quoted USD 8 - 10. Having had a first experience in Hanoi, we decided to walk around and bargain for the lowest rates. I even tried USD 6, but to no avail. Maybe they have no problem getting business; people here are less interested to compromise. We had no luck in reducing the rate and decided to go back to the information counter to seek advice. "8 dollars or 140,000 dong". Same rate. We were told that the taxis had to purchase some ticket to the airport, thereby adding to the cost. Alternatively, we could take the local bus 152 to the city. That was a bad decision. We waited almost 15 - 20 minutes for the bus but it stopped at a different location from where we were standing, and it didn't even stop when we flagged it! Horrible. We had to settle for a cab at 140,000 dong.

Hong Thien Loc

The ride to Pham Ngu Lao was about half an hour. That was the infamous backpackers' area akin to Khao San of Bangkok. With so many hotels in that area, we didn't think it necessary to reserve or book beforehand. Furthermore, we wanted to have the opportunity to view the rooms before making any commitment. It was high season and new year's eve, thus many of the hotels we went to were fully occupied.

Most with average rooms quoted a rate of USD 18 - 25. The difference between standard and superior / deluxe rooms lie in the presence of a window and slightly bigger room area. Most of the windows are facing rooftops of other buildings, besides the bulk of our time will be spent touring the city, so there is really no point in spending the extra USD 5. Most also claimed that they would issue a discount if they discovered that you are only staying for one night. But I hardly think that is the case, for we extended our stay at Hong Thien Loc for the same rate as the first night.

Most of the bedrooms we viewed either have old-looking mattress, stained walls, or small bathrooms with no separate shower partition. There was no specific one that met my expectations - spotless room with a clean bed and bathroom with shower partition.

I think we went to about 10 hotels before settling down at Hong Thien Loc. Neat room, with a large TV, satellite channels, and importantly, clean bathroom with bathtub. It even comes with a dressing table, hairdryer and bedside switches - very convenient for lazy bums like us who had to play scissors-paper-stone to decide who gets off the bed to switch off the lights at night. At USD 35 (inclusive of breakfast), it was quite a good deal (even more so as I realized later).

One strange happening though was the red ants (luckily only a few) that kept appearing on the bed. Not sure if it were the skin flakes that attracted the ants or some dead insect near the bed.

Pho 24

Along the same stretch as Hong Thien Loc was Pho 24, the noodle chain that was a recommended stop on the tourist brochure handed to us at the airport.


The noodles were thin and very smooth; and the soup thick with beefy taste. Tempest hates the bean sprouts and green garnishing that is present in almost every Vietnamese dish though. I love them, save for the mint-like flavored leaves. Overall, it was pretty good quality pho, much tastier than the ones I tried at the PGP canteen.

The simple meal didn't come cheap. It costs 118,000 dong, equivalent to SGD 10.

North Face

With a 70% filled tummy, we strolled along stretches of shops in search of a day-pack - an extremely useful item for excursions (the day pack carried our Frommers, Lonely Planet, maps, tour brochures, water, camera, wallets, handphones etc).

There were lots of cute little North Face bags, all going under USD 10! Very likely chiong stuff, but still functional and looks like the real deal. 2 shops quoted USD 7 or 8. The third one asked for only USD 5 or 80,000 dong. (See, as highlighted earlier, things are cheaper if you pay in dong.) Cheap! Ha.. but I still tried to bargain for 4 dollars I think.. The shop owner turned it down flat.

It can even be strapped onto our backpack. Definitely a worthwhile buy, and turns out to be the first and only buy of our 8-day trip.

MTV Travel

Hospitable staff, but lousy service. Even somewhat dishonest, I feel. We signed up 2 packages:

• Day tour to Cao Dai Temple and Cuchi Tunnels (read about it in Chapter 2)
  
• Open bus ticket and accommodation in Dalat (see Chapter 3)
  

There were tons of tour agencies that lined the several streets in Pham Ngu Lao area. We went to a few near our hotel, and given the cost and proximity, decided on MTV Travel, which was less than 5 minutes walk from Hong Thien Loc. Another consideration of Tempest was the friendly girls who constantly smiled at him. He falls prey easily to friendly people. Personally, I prefer the more established Sinh Cafe which was a few streets away. But unfortunately, we were a little put off by the distance (it was a 15 minute walk from the hotel), the thought of crossing the roads and battling with the traffic, and having to queue and wait with the large number of tourists crowding the shop. Urgh!

Food Hunt

Searching for good and cheap food has always been one of the activities on any of our tour itineraries. Guidebooks recommended Quan An Ngon, and we enjoyed it at its Hanoi outlet. On our way there, we stopped by a roadside stall and bought a small plateful of steamed glutinous rice doused with peanuts. They also had other colored varieties - green, orange and black. We both love peanuts, and I didn't know then that I could ask for a mixed variety, so we went for the peanut version.


It was dark and we kinda lost our way. Coupled with the drizzle, we ended up at some cafe known as Com Tam Moc, serving Vietnamese broken rice. Initially, I thought the rice was purposely pounded to make it broken into smaller pieces, thus stickier and more starchy like glutinous rice. Then I read in the net that it was just a lower grade of rice which was broken during harvest, and therefore cheaper.


I had a similar version less the pork skin for 26,000 dong. The portions are not big, but sufficient to tame your hungry stomach. The barely charred BBQ pork was sweet, and tasted even better with some fish sauce. Likewise for the minced pork pie. I didn't like the fried pork skin; it had a pretty strong indescribable smell that even the fish sauce couldn't help to enhance the flavor of it. Tempest did not seem to mind it though and gobbled everything on the plate, even the pickled vegies. The clear melon soup that accompanied the rice was mildly sweet and helps to cleanse the palate after the meal. The thinly sliced green-colored melon strips (or maybe it's cucumber) was boiled till soft and makes for easy chewing and swallowing. Overall, the meal was worth a try.

It was new year's eve. The large compound across the street where our hotel was located was packed with people getting involved in the celebrations, either by indulging in the local food (fried sparrows, skewered crocodile meat, coned ice cream, beer etc) or standing by the river watching staged performances. It looked like a huge pasar malam or one of those river hongbao performances we had back home. We weren't that adventurous in trying the exotic stuff and went for the grilled corn instead. It was only our first night and we took care to ensure that we eat only fully cooked hot stuffs.


The locals seem to love ice cream. There were a lot of stalls selling ice cream cones likewise those we saw in McDonald's. Not to mention several ice cream cafes we noticed around the city - Fanny's, Bud's and the local chain Bac Dang. Tempest caught on the Kem (ice cream in Vietnamese) fever and insisted on eating at Bud's, which was somewhat near Pham Ngu Lao area.

It was a two storey building packed with locals. We selected our icecream - pineapple and mango sorbet in an icecream cone, topped with blueberries. According to the menu, we were supposed to choose 2 flavors, and an extra topping. The cone is to come with ready toppings - jimmies, cherry, and some other stuff. But the waitress didn't understand us (or their own menu), and came with 2 servings instead, one plate of 2 scoops of mango / pineapple sorbet, and another cone with vanilla icecream topped with strawberry syrup. Sigh.. I am glad I didn't further complicate my order by telling them not to put in whipped cream.


Expenditure till date:


Exchange rate in use:

USD / SGD: 1.46
VND / USD: 17,000

Labels: dalat, ho chi minh, travel, vietnam

posted by slingwoof @ 1/08/2009 11:53:00 PM 0 comments